Vossenack German Cemetery

Vossenack German Cemetery

The Vossenack Cemetery was constructed on a strategic site, Hill 470, by the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge) during the years 1949 to 1952. Today the cemetery contains the graves of 2.347 war dead. Among those are 35 men who lost their lives during post-war operations as members of a 'Ammunition Search and Removal Team'.

From mid September 1944 till the end of February 1945 fierce battles raged in the region between the ridge line of the Hautes Fagnes and the Rur River, a phase of the Second World War better known as ‘The Battle of Huertgen Forest’. Ten thousands of American and German soldiers died during the six months of the fierce and bloody fighting. Following the request of the next of kin, the remains of most American soldiers were repatriated to U.S. soil for interment in a National or private cemetery.

The remains of the German soldiers who lost their lives during the Huertgen Forest Campaign found their eternal resting places on German War Cemeteries, especially Huertgen and Vossenack, or communal cemeteries in the area. A larger part of fallen German soldiers had been transferred by elements of the American Graves Registration Service, a military branch of the Quartermaster Corps, to Belgium and the Netherlands on German War Cemeteries there.

The Vossenack Cemetery was constructed on a strategic site, Hill 470, by the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge) during the years 1949 to 1952. Today the cemetery contains the graves of 2.347 war Dead. Among those are 35 men who lost their lives during post-war operations as members of a 'Ammunition Search and Removal Team'.

Since 21 May 2005 a monument at the entrance to the cemetery commemorates Julius Erasmus, a German Engineer Captain who - mostly under risking his life - recovered 1.569 sets of remains of his former comrades from the Huertgen Forest battlefields and personally buried them on this hill.